Imaginary Lover // Camren Fanfiction

Chapter 23

It took Camila's and Lauren's lips a while to pull away from one
another, but when they finally did, Lauren half skipped, half walked with
tingling lips along the path to her office.

She felt if she lifted her feet any
higher from the ground, she would float away.

Humming as she tried to control her non-flight, she bumped straight into Mrs. Bracken, who stood in her doorway, eyeing up the tourists across the road.

"Jesus!" Lauren jumped back in fright.

"Is the son of God, who sacrificed his life and died on the cross to
spread the Lord's word and to give you a better life, so don't take his name
in vain," Mrs. Bracken rattled off. She nodded in the direction of the café.

"What are those foreigners up to at all, at all?"

Lauren bit her lip and tried not to laugh. "I have no idea. Why don't
you join them?"

"Mr. Bracken wouldn't be pleased about that carry-on at all." She must
have sensed something in Lauren's voice, because her head shot up, her
eyes narrowed, and she studied Lauren's face intently.

"You look different.You've been spending time up at that tower?" Mrs. Bracken accused her.

"Of course I have, Mrs. Bracken, I'm designing the place, remember?"
Mrs. Bracken's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Your hair's down."

"And?" Lauren asked, moving into the fabric shop to see if her order
had arrived.

"And Mr. Bracken used to say beware of a woman who drastically
changes her hair."

"I would hardly call letting my hair down a drastic change."

"Lauren Jauregui, for you of all people, I would call letting your hair
down a drastic change. By the way," she moved on quickly, not allowing
Lauren to get a word in, "there's a problem with the order that came in
today."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's colorful." She said the word as if it were a disease and, widening
her eyes, she emphasized the next word even more: "Red."

Lauren smiled. "It's raspberry, not red, and what's wrong with a bit
of color?"

"What's wrong with a bit of color, she says." Mrs. Bracken raised her
voice an octave.

"Up until last week, your world was brown. It's the tower
that's doing it to you. The American fella, isn't it?"

"Oh, don't you start with that tower talk as well." Lauren dismissed her. "I've been up there all week and it's just a crumbling wall."

"A crumbling wall is right," she said, eyeing her. "And it's the American fella that's knocking it."

Lauren rolled her eyes. "Good-bye, Mrs. Bracken." She ran upstairs
to her office. On her entry, a pair of legs sticking out from underneath
Keana's desk greeted her. They were men's legs, brown cords with brown
shoes moving and squiggling around.

"Is that you, Lauren?" a voice shouted out.

"Yes, Harry." Lauren smiled. Oddly, she was finding the two people
who usually irritated her on a daily basis strangely lovable. Camila was certainly passing the silly smile test.

"I'm just tightening up this chair, Keana told me it was acting up on ya
last week."

"It was, Harry, thanks."